Plagiarism in a Group Essay

Washingt0n

Hey guys, I've just finished my first year in DCU and was happy with my results except for one essay in one module.

In this module we we're given a group essay to do for the end of the semester, two other people worked with me on it. When it came to results time I got an email from my lecturer and I had to call him. He informed me that some of our essay had been plagiarized, and I had to go meet him, as the other two people I had worked with were out of the country.

When I saw which sections of the essay were plagiarized it was clear that it was a section I had not written, I had read over it but had no idea it had been taken from a book.

Luckily the lecturer was sympathetic and we just had to do the essay again.

I'm just wondering has this ever happened to anyone else? Were someone else's work in a group essay has lead to you getting into hassel. The DCU plagiarism policy has no mention of group essay, and I'd just like to know how I could avoid this in the future and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else!

Would love to know what you guys all think! Thanks!

Bluetonic

If you sign the plagiarism sheet for group work you're responsible for the whole body of work and can be punished as such.

There are a number of plagiarism checkers online but I wouldn't recommend using them due to reasons I won't go into.

Plagiarism WILL be caught so you need to drill it into anyone you work with to reference correctly.

Green Hand Guy

Has a similar thing with a group essay a few years ago. Everyone was to send their parts to me and I'd edit it together. When I read one girls part it was really obvious it wasn't written by her. Googled the first sentence and came up with a wikipedia page. Luckily I caught it then or I could have been in a similar situation.

I guess the advice I'd give is to always google a few random sentences from other peoples' sections.

Bluetonic

Mr.S wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Whats with the sarcastic eyes?

Bluetonic

Mr.S wrote: »

If your stupid, you get caught for plagiarizing

I'm still at a loss as to why you used the sarcastic eyes?

There was nothing remotely sarcastic at play there.

Pygmalion

Mr.S wrote: »

If your stupid, you get caught for plagiarizing

If you're (not your) not stupid, you don't need to plagiarise.

Monkey09

I guess you'll know not to work with that particular individual again!!

Thankfully, you learned the lesson in first so no real damage done.

A valuable lesson was learned though...:)

Washingt0n

Yes, but it could have happened in any year with anyone, how are you meant to know the person you're working with hasnt plagerised?

Should the college not have some safe guard against stuff like that happening?

gollem_1975

its up to the students to check it before submitting it imo.

isn't there some tool that they use ( an online checker whose name I can't remember at this point ) in DCU.

check with your lecturer or with some of the library staff they might be able to point you in the right direction.

and yes , I have heard of groups that this did happen to , at masters level too. wasn't bothered enough to find out too much about it ( I think they denied it , all students involved made it through the year anyway so there didn't appear to be a severe penalty for this action)

Monkey09

Washingt0n wrote: »

Yes, but it could have happened in any year with anyone, how are you meant to know the person you're working with hasnt plagerised?

Don't think that's true (from my experience anyway!). Students who plagerise are normally too lazy or couldn't be bothered doing the essay. Others leave it untill the last minute and come up with sevel passages out of books just to have something to hand up.

Don't know about you, but in my class, i can certainly tell the ones which would chance plagerism...

snickerpuss

One of the many reasons I'm glad my course involved no group essays. Much rather be judged for my own work. (dirty humanities grad!)

phasers

My God, how hard is it to re write something in your own words? (I should say I know you're not really meant to do that either)

That's just lazy. Sorry about your troubles OP.

missmol2010

Thats the trouble with groupwork and why I HATE it. You should be fully responsible for your own work and grades and effort in your degree. I think group essays are just a way of making the workload lighter for lecturers and yes I know that in the real world organisations require group work but at least there ya can fire the ass of the lazy person.

gollem_1975

phasers wrote: »

My God, how hard is it to re write something in your own words? (I should say I know you're not really meant to do that either)

That's just lazy. Sorry about your troubles OP.

you are assuming that English is the students first language which often is not the case.

phasers

gollem_1975 wrote: »

you are assuming that English is the students first language which often is not the case.

If they can't understand and re write a sentence they shouldn't really be in an English speaking university.

aDeener

Washingt0n wrote: »

Hey guys, I've just finished my first year in DCU and was happy with my results except for one essay in one module.

In this module we we're given a group essay to do for the end of the semester, two other people worked with me on it. When it came to results time I got an email from my lecturer and I had to call him. He informed me that some of our essay had been plagiarized, and I had to go meet him, as the other two people I had worked with were out of the country.

When I saw which sections of the essay were plagiarized it was clear that it was a section I had not written, I had read over it but had no idea it had been taken from a book.

Luckily the lecturer was sympathetic and we just had to do the essay again.

I'm just wondering has this ever happened to anyone else? Were someone else's work in a group essay has lead to you getting into hassel. The DCU plagiarism policy has no mention of group essay, and I'd just like to know how I could avoid this in the future and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else!

Would love to know what you guys all think! Thanks!

you got off so lightly only because you are a first year. won't get away with that carry on anymore!

Fuhrer

aDeener wrote: »

you got off so lightly only because you are a first year. won't get away with that carry on anymore!

True enough, you were lucky though to get off as lightly as you did.


I remember Me and two other guys shared some assignment in first year for Programming and we all got 0 for the continuous assessment.